The Congregation of the St. Martin De Porres Brothers is a lay Religious Congregation founded by the late Bishop Sisto Mazzoldi of the Comboni Missionary Society in 1953 in the Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Juba, South Sudan and the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide granted a “Nihil obstat” on 27th October 1952 (Prot. No.3388/52: thus Bishop Mazzoldi issued a decree of erection of the Institute on 23rd March 1953. In 1950s, there were serious needs of dedicated young men to help teach in schools of all levels especially in the Catholic Schools to address the needs and the improvement of Education in the then Sudan.

This call was realized by the influx of the young men who joined the Congregation and soon the Congregation started to flourish through the apostolate of the young religious who whole heartedly embraced the life of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience to offer their services to the people of God who were in dire need of education. Unfortunately in 1964, all the Missionaries in then Sudan were expelled by the Military Government and imposed strict Islamic System of Education in Sudan. This was a serious blow to the young Congregation that was starting to take off with enthusiasm. Nevertheless the Congregation was forced to flee to exile in Uganda where it started again in refugee camps with some Missionaries who flew from their Countries to meet with South Sudanese Refugees in various camps and continued with the missionary activities there.

Generally, the Congregation has been a pilgrim Congregation due to wars in both the Sudan and Uganda where the Congregation has expanded. This has seriously affected the steady progress of the Congregation and the destruction of properties of the Congregation. To date, the Congregation is responsible for the imparting of educational knowledge to the people of God in different Countries in Africa where the Brothers are based especially; Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda and we are fully committed to fighting illiteracy and especially in South Sudan where the illiteracy is 65.48% which means only 34.52% are literate (World Bank 2018) . The challenges are insurmountable, but with the grace of God and with the support of the development partners we would be able to overcome some of them.